


only a little bad

by callabang



Series: witch fic [2]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Gen, M/M, Philadelphia Flyers, Sleeping Potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23967286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/pseuds/callabang
Summary: TK may be a witch’s apprentice, but he doesn’t, like, actually know anything about magic.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Series: witch fic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1712791
Comments: 51
Kudos: 316





	only a little bad

**Author's Note:**

> I simply love this universe and can’t stop thinking about it! Thanks to d. manybumblebees for betaing this and forgiving my tense crimes.
> 
> Title from "Teenage Witch" by Suzi Wu.

TK may be a witch’s apprentice, but he doesn’t, like, actually know anything about magic. 

...

He first met Patty, back when he was interviewing for this position, at the cute little cafe in the center of town. The barista at the time, a scrawny blond motherfucker, shot Patty a glare as he handed over their coffees. 

(Later, TK realized that it was because some people — not most, probably not even many, but definitely some — have a problem with magic. Over time, he got better at identifying those people, and at putting himself in between them and Patty. At the time he just kind of thought it felt like an awful lot of hostility for a Wednesday afternoon.)

They sat down, and TK took a sip of his black iced coffee, and Patty took a sip of his fancy little cinnamon number.

“I don’t know anything about magic,” TK said. He thought it was probably better to get that out of the way. “Also I didn’t think this was a real job posting. But I brought my resume.”

He had worked pretty hard on it. He was even planning to print it on resume paper, but he couldn’t find any before he had to leave and he was kind of in a rush, so he’d gone for one copy on mint green construction paper and one normal one instead.

“Why did you apply if you didn’t think it was a real job posting?” Patty asked, reading through his qualifications. He chose the green copy, TK noticed. He considered that a good sign. Patty’s eyebrows went up. “Your last job was ‘Hockey Socialist’?” 

“Yeah! I organized all the fundraisers and parties and stuff for the team. And,” TK said, eager to explain why he really needed this job, “I applied because you said housing was included and I really really need a place to live, so I figured it was worth a shot.”

Patty took another sip of his drink. It looked like he was maybe taking a minute to process that. Then he sighed.

“I can’t pay you that much,” he said.

TK did a little mental fistbump, and then gave in to the urge and did a physical one. “Yeah, I saw your rates, it’s fine. Again, can’t stress enough, I really need a place to live.”

Patty let out another sigh — this one was deeper — and nodded a little, like he was coming to terms with some stuff. “Okay, well. Why don’t you come look at the room? I have to make sure you get along with Winnie.”

“Sounds great,” TK said, putting his resumes away carefully. “Who’s Winnie?”

...

Patty had never really followed up on the whole “TK not knowing anything about magic” thing. It’s possible that he hadn’t really understood how total TK’s lack of knowledge was, and that’s why he’s looking so dismayed as TK fails for the third time in a row to complete what is apparently a pretty simple sleeping potion.

TK thinks that’s really Patty’s own personal problem.

“I don’t understand why this is so hard for you. It’s not even real spellwork, it’s literally just mixing ingredients in a bowl,” Patty says. TK looks at the bowl in his hand, which he’s currently ruining, and then at the bowl on the table, which he’s already finished ruining. Neither bowl resembles Patty’s, which is full of a deep purple liquid that glistens iridescent in the light.

“It can’t be that easy, if you’re recipe testing it,” TK says. His potion is getting thicker as he stirs, which frankly just does not seem right.

“I’m recipe testing it for the potency, not because I’m worried about accidentally brewing concrete,” Patty says. He stirs his mixture one last time before pouring the contents of his bowl into a waiting bottle and corking it up. Then he joins TK in looking at the bowl in TK’s hand.

“I literally don’t even know what you could have done to make it that color,” he says. TK also doesn’t know, but he thinks it could have something to do with when he accidentally spilled, like, half the vial of crushed ostrich eggshell into his mixture. 

He hopes that’s easy to replace.

TK shoots Patty a winning smile, which Patty dutifully ignores. “I don’t know, bud, I guess I’m just not cut out for the magic side of things.” It would be a pretty dick move for Patty to fire TK about it at this stage of the game, especially since business is going so well. TK is eighty percent confident that he won’t.

“I guess not,” Patty says. 

He makes TK clean up the bowls, which TK guesses is fair. Then he makes TK try the sleeping potion, which seems less fair.

“Can’t it wait until it’s actually time for bed?” TK asks, perching himself on one of the stools by the workbench. It’s midafternoon, and he has stuff to do today. He spent weeks finally convincing Patty to make all his potions come in shot-sized servings and he wants to get in an order of branded shot glasses with his Etsy hookup before the weekend.

“The whole point is to see if it can help you sleep when you  _ aren’t  _ tired,” Patty says. He’s already pouring TK a dose — since they agreed on the new portions, he’s been using a shot glass TK got him the last time he visited Lawson in Phoenix to measure. It’s shaped like a little cactus wearing a single cowboy boot and a fetching little red bandana.

TK sighs dramatically, even as he’s picking up the shot glass. 

“Okay, fine, but if this knocks me out I’m not gonna make dinner,” he says. He sniffs the shot delicately before he downs it. It smells like blackberries and something smokey; the smokiness lingers on the back of his tongue after he swallows.

“I’ll order something,” Patty says. He stacks TK’s bowls gingerly — one of them definitely looks toxic — and starts clearing away the potion ingredients, turning to put the vials back in the cabinet above the workbench.

TK watches him do it, noticing the little sliver of skin that appears at the bottom of his hoodie when he stretches up to put something on the top shelf, the delicate way his hair curls behind his ears. Patty’s a good buddy, even if he sometimes uses TK as a human guinea pig. He doesn’t understand why more people don’t get that.

TK starts to feel kind of strange.

He’s overwarm, suddenly, sweat beading on his forehead and the back of his neck. He lifts a hand to feel his own cheek and misses, arm landing heavily on the table. It’s a good thing, though, because his vision starts to swim, and at least the sturdy wood of the workbench gives him something to brace himself against.

He blinks heavily, once and then again, trying to make the room stop spinning, and when he opens his eyes the second time he’s slumped fully over, face pressed half in his sweatshirt sleeve and half to the grainy wood of the bench. How’d he get here?

He tries to sit up to ask Patty, but before he can manage it, his muscles give up the ghost entirely and he crumples off the stool into a heap on the floor. The sensation of his head cracking against the tile isn’t pleasant, and neither is the way it makes the vertigo worse. 

Everything is a little more disorienting from the floor, so TK closes his eyes. His brain is still kind of spinning, though, so he tries taking a deep breath. It helps, a little bit, so he does it again.

“—K? TK, are yo—” 

Suddenly Patty’s hands are on him, jamming under TK’s shoulders and pulling him so he’s sprawled out on the floor instead of curled in on himself halfway under the workbench. Patty feels his forehead, his hand big and cool against TK’s skin, and TK struggles to open his eyes because Patty sounds kind of freaked out.

“‘S okay, bud,” he says, or tries to say. His tongue isn’t cooperating a whole lot right now; it’s making his lisp worse, which: rude. “I wanna go t’ sleep.”

He’s so tired, all of a sudden. He desperately wants to go to sleep, it would feel so good to go to sleep. He can just see Patty, hazy through the blur of his own eyelashes. Patty looks pissed off and maybe a little bit scared. 

“Shut up,” Patty says, feeling TK’s face. His hand is big and cool on TK’s overheated skin. It feels really good, so TK closes his eyes again, and then opens them with a little yelp when Patty slaps his cheek.

“Stay awake, idiot,” Patty says, which is unfair, because TK is more tired than he’s ever been in his life. He thinks if he fell asleep now he’d be unconscious, for, like, days.

“I know, that’s why you need to stay awake,” Patty says from far away. That doesn’t make any sense, when you’re tired you should sleep, and TK is very tired. He realizes slowly that Patty isn’t crouched over him anymore; instead, he’s across the room rummaging around. When did that happen? 

Distantly, TK is aware that his brain isn’t working super great, right now. He thinks that might be scary in another circumstance, but, like, Patty’s right here. So he’s not worried.

He tries to say that to Patty but he mostly just hums instead; the vibration feels weird and he gets kind of lost in the sensation for a minute, until Patty is back and hauling TK up. He ends up slumped over, face in the crook of Patty’s shoulder. It smells pretty nice.   
“Drink this,” Patty says firmly, then there’s a something on TK’s lips, something cool and citrusy, and Patty tips his head back and then it’s in his mouth and he swallows it, a reflex, and then Patty says, “Okay, Teeks, you can go to sleep,” and TK is really, really tired and Patty is right there supporting TK’s weight and letting TK’s head rest carefully on his shoulder and telling him it’s all okay, and he has just enough time to think  _ if you say so  _ before he’s out. 

…

When TK wakes up, feeling more rested than he’s ever felt in his life, he’s sprawled out on the couch in the sunroom, a pillow tucked under his head and Winnie curled up on his chest.

He pets her head gently with one finger and takes stock of his body. His head hurts a little where he banged it off the ground, and his eyes are gritty and dry. He desperately wants to stretch. Other than that, though, he feels good, normal.

He blinks a few times and gingerly cranes his neck around towards the corner, slowly so as not to disturb Winnie. Patty is scrunched up in his armchair, as per usual. For once, though, he’s not on his phone, just watching Winnie rise up and down lightly with TK’s breathing.

“I made dinner,” Patty says, “Mac and cheese.” 

“It’s the least you could do,” TK says, jokingly; he doesn’t expect the way Patty winces a little and goes red. 

“I know,” Patty says. He’s winding the string from his hoodie around his index finger and not looking at TK’s face at all. “Do you feel okay?”

“I feel great,” TK says. “Like I slept twelve hours. What time is it, anyway?”

“Eight o’clock,” Pattys answers. “I made it too strong.”

TK doesn’t like the look on Patty’s face at all. “Part of the process, right, bud? No harm, no foul.”

“You, like, totally collapsed,” Patty says. “I had to give you an antidote.”

TK reaches up to scoop Winnie off his chest. He sits up, wiggling around to settle her delicately on the pillow, and then goes over to Patty. 

Patty still won’t look at him, just stares stubbornly forward even when TK’s right in front of him and all he can see is TK’s stomach. 

“I’m fine, buddy. You took care of things, I’m right as rain,” he says gently. Patty finally drops the hoodie tie and glances up at him. 

“I shouldn’t have made you take it. You didn’t even know what the side effects could be.”

“That’s my fault too,” TK says. He can’t stand Patty looking at him like that, all vulnerable and guilty, so he pulls Patty’s hood up over his head and scrunches it closed. “Lesson learned, I’ll ask next time.”

Patty squawks and bats at him, and TK keeps holding onto the strings, so the next five or so minutes devolve into wrestling while Winnie blinks disdainfully from her pillow. It ends with TK getting Patty into a headlock in the middle of the carpet. 

“Seriously, Patty, it’s fine, okay? Don’t be a sad sack about it, we’ll just be more careful next time,” TK says, as Patty claws ineffectually at his arms.

“Fine, Jesus,” he grits out eventually, so TK lets him go and flops down beside him as he gasps for breath. They lay there for a while, until Patty’s breathing has gone back to normal and his face is less fluorescent. 

“Aren’t you, like, scared to take something else, though?” Patty asks.

“No way, buddy,” TK says. “If you think I’m giving up your special brownies you’re crazy. But,” he continues thoughtfully, “I’m not gonna help you with any more potions, though. If you can fuck me up that bad I don’t wanna know what I could do wrong.”

Patty shudders pointedly, like he thinks TK won’t put him in another headlock. Foolish.

“Probably for the best,” he says, and then they go to enjoy some mac and cheese.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m taking witch fic prompts! Hit me up either in the comments or on [Twitter.](http://www.twitter.com/callabang_) DM’s open to all :)


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